Creation of All Things
by Acaykath
Summary: Shirou is alone, sealed in a dark room, his circuits surgically removed for study. He has always been a failure as a magus, and this is the worst case scenario, but his captors missed one detail, and Shirou isn't one to give up.


Shirou Emiya was alone. It was dark. He had not seen another person for a long time, perhaps months. It was difficult to tell. The only method he had to tell time was the rumbling of his digestive system which he was only able to satisfy with some tasteless mush he could suck through a tube. He probably would have used that opening to try and drown himself by now, but the mages of the Clocktower had made a mistake.

It had started only moments after he Rin and Saber had destroyed the grail. As much as Saber wanted to stay, her contract was over and she had faded away, returning to her final battle, leaving the two exhausted magi alone to grieve, or so they thought. There had been a flurry of black cloaks, then Shirou had awoken strapped to a table and informed that he had received a sealing designation because he had achieved a reality marble at such a young age and that they had surgically removed his magical circuits for study. Then, they had tortured him for every iota of information about manifesting a reality marble. When they finally realized that the only reason he had manifested a reality marble was because one of the summoned spirits was a future version of himself who had mastered the skill, they soon lost interest. One day, Rin came to see him. She only muttered a quick apology before he felt her cancel the prana sharing contract she had created with him before leaving. He had not seen another human since then.

The isolation had given him a lot of time to think. One thing had kept niggling at the back of his mind since that visit. He knew his magic circuits had been removed. He had tried to access his od once he had been told that and several times since. The only explanation was that his magic circuits were no longer gone, that they were healing. The Magus Association had been too focused on his reality marble, they had not thought to question anything else, they had missed the fact that he had Avalon stored within his body healing him. For now, Shirou could do nothing but gather his od and focus it into Avalon that was dispersed throughout his body to speed up the healing.

* * *

Shirou didn't know how long it had taken, but the time had not been wasted. He had become so focused on Avalon that he could now use it almost as well as Arturia herself if he really tried, not to mention the advancements he had made to his structural grasp. He had studied his own body and Avalon intently, neither of which was a sword. It had taken some trial and error, and some intense focus, and more headaches than he would have imagined possible. He had evolved the ability to the point that he could analyze anything that he could see.

He was healthy now, but that was only the first step. Without Rin's contract, he did not have enough magic to activate it. Even if he could, he felt that it was not his reality marble. That was the magic of Counter Guardian Emiya. He merely copied it. He was a faker after all. The best damn faker in the world, creating from nothing... Shirou cut off that line of thought. He had more important matters to worry about, like his experiment.

Shirou had always been able to materialize thing other than swords. They had never been quite as complete as swords, but perhaps with Avalon, that wouldn't matter. If he could materialize high capacity circuits one at a time, the have Avalon heal them when they disappeared he would soon have the highest prana capacity short of Zelretch, but considering Zelretch had infinite capacity due to being able to pull from parallel worlds, Shirou did not think being second was all that bad. It would alo hurt a lot less that converting his own nerves into magical circuits like he originally had tried to do when he had thought he had only one instead of twenty-seven.

Shirou was careful to examine all his magical circuits before going forward. He looked at how they were made, how they connected, how they functioned, their history, everything. When he was absolutely sure he understood he created a single magical circuit inside of himself with a capacity of more than double all his circuits combined. It was like a searing hot knife had torn a gouge alongside his spine, but he could feel the prana flow. He focused on Avalon, healing the invasive intrusion. It took at least an hour before the circuit was properly integrated, then the circuit had dissolved and Avalon had needed to heal the missing circuit.

The procedure had been a success, but it had taken far too long. The problem with Avalon was that it had been made specifically for King Arturia. For him, while he had attuned to it enough to get it to heal quite rapidly, it was still healing only one wound at a time. He wondered if two working together would speed up the process, or perhaps he could trace a copy that was modified to work for him instead of Arturia, or perhaps multiple copies attuned to him. With his new magical circuit he would have plenty of prana to spare for a little experimentation as he waited for his new magical circuits to heal.

* * *

Shirou was incredibly pleased with himself. His experiments had yielded fruit. He had not only modified noble phantasm, he had created an entirely new one that was not even a sword, and it was permanent. He was no longer a faker. His new noble phantasm was a simple ring that could only be worn by him. He called it All Creation Ascendant, or if he was feeling particularly juvenile, 'You can't touch me nyah!'. Thanks to this, he was finally able to get up and move around as the only things that touched him were those he wanted to touch him.

* * *

Shirou's body hummed with prana, his body overflowing with od. Every muscle fiber had an accompanying magic circuit, every nerve. A web of magical circuits encased every organ, flowed under his skin, coated every bone. He was robed in noble phantasms created to defend from every possible assault, mental, physical, poison, time, or even reality warping. He did not even fear Zelretch nor the Blue. He was fairly certain he could even face the counter guardians if need be without fear.

Shirou activated higher ability of his cloak. It had two levels. The lower merely made people who look at you think you were so below notice as to ignore you. The higher combined that with an actual light refraction invisibility. He also activated the ability of his boots. They would guide him wherever he most desired to go. Since he was wearing All Creation Ascendant, he could also ignore all obstacles in the way.

It didn't take long to reach her. She was in the same building. She had a workshop set up filled with jewels which were used for her craft. Shirou deactivated his cloak and spoke. "Long time no see, Rin."

Rin dropped her tools and spun around, holding out a fiery red gem. "Gandr!"

Shirou's eyes widened. He'd always wondered how that spell worked. It seemed his upgraded structural analysis could even analyze spells, and he could tell Gandr was inefficient. He wasn't upset that she tried to attack him. A workshop was sacred to a magus and she probably had quite a few protections up that he had just waltzed right through. While she worked out her frustration, Shirou began putting his new talent to use. A minute later, Rin was tiring of trying to find a way to hurt him, and he was holding a small silver gun.

"Try this," Shirou suggested. It was a testament to how angry she was that she pointed the gun right at his face and fired without checking it first. A Gandr three times as powerful as the ones she had used earlier shot out of the barrel.

Rin dropped the gun in shock. "How did you... Who are you?"

"You don't recognize your old partner from the grail war?" Shirou asked.

"That's impossible. You're dead... You stopped taking food two years ago!"

Shirou held out a hand and created an apple that he happily munched on. "I found the stuff they served to be lacking in variety so I decided to provide my own. I am not just a faker anymore. That gun is real. It fires Gandr better than you can. It is a new noble phantasm that I created. After all, it's because of you that I have developed this true magic, this sorcery."

"How?" Rin asked.

"These eyes see everything. I may have started with weapons, but I had to move on to other things since I was locked in that room. I had to look at myself, truly understand myself, what I am, what I was, what I am becoming, who I am, who I have the potential to be. I truly say myself, all my strengths, and every one of my flaws in the finest of detail with full understanding of their consequences and sources. That type of knowledge can be scary Rin. I can do the same to you with a mere glance, know what your thinking, and what you will do based on your brain chemistry and past actions. I can literally read your mind by breaking down the chemical markers into knowledge and memories. The past of a person is so much more clear than the past of an object."

Rin was shivering at the implications.

"When I looked at myself, I realized something. I was never attacked. That meant that something already inside me took me down. Something like part of a servant clause of a prana sharing contract. We were enemies in the grail war, technically, even if we were working together so of course I don't begrudge you including protection against betrayal, nor using it when you were not given any choice in the matter. After all, how can you weigh the suffering of a boy you've been sleeping with against the life of your sister. The lords of the Clock Tower are not kind."

Rin look away and snorted derisively.

"You did one thing for me though. The one thing that saved me is that you never told them about Avalon, and you did not cancel the contract until Avalon had healed at least some of my magical circuits."

"Avalon can regrow your magical circuits?" Rin demanded.

"All I needed was one. That was enough to feed Avalon to heal the rest," Shirou explained, "Then I faked new magic circuits and healed those. Now my magic circuits number in the tens perhaps even hundreds of thousands. As I healed and improved, I advanced my abilities until I achieved this new ultimate height, this magic I call All Creation. I think my structural analysis has even reached the point where it taps into the Akashic Root. If I can imagine it, I can create it, not from my od, but bring it forth out of nothing. Prana cost is based on size, not complexity, nor how magical an item is. I still amaze myself with this ability."

"That's incredible..." Rin said.

"And it should be enough for your report. You can tell them to feel free to send Zeltrech or the Blue after me because I am immune to them as well as all the true magics that I know of or could imagine coming into being. This is the last time I will set foot in the Clock Tower for a long time. Make sure you spell my name right in that report.

I am the heart of the void  
I am nowhere, reaching to infinity  
I strive to emerge from the endless darkness  
Knowing everything, yet seeing nothing  
Yearning to fill the horizon, bring forth from in my mind's eye  
I have one vision, as I master the true art  
I shall bring forth all creation"

The room disappeared. All that was left was an endless expanse of inky blackness. Then, a hill of swords, much like Counter Guardian Emiya's reality marble appeared while Rin remained obscured in the darkness. A young blonde woman in blue wearing plate mail with a sword at her hip appeared in a flash of light. She collapsed to the ground, a mortal wound impaling her.

Shirou crossed the hill and placed Avalon in the woman's arms. "Arturia, I promised to meet you again on a hill of swords, so now is not the time to give up."

"Shirou!" Arturia exclaimed, her wounds already miraculously healed, "Where's Rin?"

"She is here, but she betrayed us. I will show you what has happened and leave it to you to decide," Shirou said. He activated another of his phantasms, transferring a portion of his knowledge.

"Take us somewhere the Magus Association cannot find us. She has already made her choice," Arturia said coldly. She did not like those who betrayed. "You are a creator. It is time something new was created, something better."

The void disappeared and Rin was alone in her workshop.


End file.
